Musings, diatribes and dialogues from one of Chicago's quirkiest musical psychologists. This and that and rat-a-tat-tat.

Friday, March 22, 2013

Psychotic Word Salad: The Offical Memoir Title

Call it what you like, but the Offbeat Drummer would never squash the power of spreading my blog across the world. I'm very happy that another mental health site, HealthShire, is following the diatribes, but I feel compelled to forewarn that my posts aren't entirely, solely about the practice or therapist training in psychology, or the physicality of my mental disorders. In fact, the vast majority of blogs are generated out of my personal feelings, be they love, the people I love, hate, music or defense and self-salvation.

A while ago, I started to follow a Tweeter called the "Chump Lady," who has this utterly deprecating, man-loathing approach to love and marriage. In essence, men are complete assholes, women bond together online for support against their philandering spouses and often referred to a divorce lawyer.

The Tweets piqued my attention, so I decided to visit the Chump Lady' site this morning, where I read this rambling, sob tale about some woman's emotionally crumbling because her husband had an affair. Her Twitter and website, so says the Chump, are supposed to offer "infidelity support."

It was a total bummer that I missed the whole day of strings of threads regarding my post that lit the group a'fire and, as I am wont to do, ruffled some serious feathers. They took down my initial comment and blocked me from further commenting, but then all felt compelled to spend all day talking about what an awful person I am, which I personally find very, very funny, obviously because I'm a bitch of epic magnitude and if I actually gave a damn, it might have merit, but alas, I don't habitually lurk anywhere & nor do I keep deepening the knife of destruction against a forum purely to incite a strong, negative reaction. I fucking read the post, offered my two cents, and went back to bed for like 6 hours.

Don't ever think I'm SO stupid that I wouldn't save my original post. It's harsh, and blunt, & I'll spare you this woman's like 10 page "Help me! I'm so sad! I'm being left for another woman!" about her husband, his mistress, teetering on divorce and lots of other wah wah blah blah.

I said:

"Suzanne: Of course he loves the other woman, primarily
because you come across as being The World's Most Demandingly Impossibly
Difficult To Live With Assbag of a Wife. Had you been remotely tolerable, his
derailment might not have happened in the first place. You haven't been making
a valiant, heroic, respectable attempt to salvage your marriage. You've baited
your husband with an iron-clad clause of stringing him up by his balls for
having feelings for someone other than you, which is incredibly selfish. The
attempt to use being barren as a weapon of sympathy is reprehensible.

Could there be any more blatant man hating on this site? I
kind of doubt it.

Yes, grant him a divorce so he has some semblance of a
chance of finding the happiness and soul searching of which you've deprived him
for such a long time, and to such an egregious degree that the pole up your ass
is long enough to hang you horizontally and dry clothes out in the breeze. Men
don't accidentally fall into other vaginas...there's always a reason and to
assume or assign all of the blame to either partner in a couple is unfair and
unreasonable. Your husband may have taken a roundabout exit to end your
relationship, but you're no angel; you're vindictive looking on this site for
validation and justification ("Let's all gang up on my dick
husband!") for what is completely also partly your own fault.
Legitimately, there is relationship and marriage burnout, and as years turn
into decades, people evolve into a place where they feel comfortable with
themselves, and that doesn't necessarily gel smoothly with the person to whom
they have been married.

Quit throwing around bourgeois cliches and asking if you're
a chump on an internet site devoted to championing the cause of the
self-proclaimed chump.

I *am* divorced and it was the best thing my ex-husband and
I could've done for one another. We're parents who gel well together but just
weren’t meant to be married . I'm also a training psychologist, so I'm not just
pulling this out of my ass.

Spare the man further agony, file the papers and move on
with your lives."

Which was, of course, the God's honest truth of the matter. But the women on this site were reaching out for comfort and affirmation for what is, in reality, 50% was their own culpability. After my nap, I checked in to see if I'd missed anything, and found myself hooting and hollering in laughter:

Jesus, "Chump Lady," it's no wonder you call yourself a chump and your life mission is to validate other chumps, who also call themselves "Chumps" and instead of empowering women, you take turns whining about what assholes your husbands are and how you're all victims of horribly flawed men. It was implied in the above comment that The Chump in Charge speculated my husband had left me for another women ("OW") when no, sorry, I left my husband.

A "musical psychologist?" Yes, can you fucking believe it? I beat things for relaxation.

Hey, Chumps? Do you comprehend, or are you all drowning so deeply in the tide of your own self-pity that I specifically notated my website into my comment so that you all *would,* in fact, read it? Oh, for fuck's sake. Of course I did. Hang on, I can't hear you because I'm jingling the triangle you joked I played. Dumb asses. This was, out of all the comments, the only one which carried with it any merit whatsoever:

As a general rule, folks, it's an extremely poor idea to try and crack skulls with a feisty, opinionated, fearless, tough punk such as myself (GASP! I was accused of being a FEMINIST!).

Oh, sanity. Way to go and shift the blame onto Suzanne's (soon-to-be lucky) erstwhile husband. Somehow, they convinced themselves early on for a second that it wasn't *me* writing the post but the husband (while I'm on his side, I'm nobody's ghost writer).

They seemed disappointed that Crabby-In-Charge removed my post, because they dissected it all day. That's not fair, as one poster declared:

Oh damn. Anyway,

"Blowhard moron." Come on, you can do better than that. "Ignorant, cruel arrogant and (worst of all) illiterate?" Hi, yeah, sorry to disappoint once again, Happy Homemakers. I have a BA in English and have read Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason." And someone! Quick! Polish the crown for the King!

Well, yes. You are indeed too stupid to live, Erika. A musical psychologist is someone who studies or practices counseling psychology and simultaneously knows how to play a musical instrument. Another shocker. When asked, which I couldn't answer, if I would ever treat my clients with such disrespect and disdain, that's highly doubtful. Would I sit idly by while a bunch of embittered wives poke needles into the voodoo dolls they've made of their husbands like the Chumps do? Y'all don't know me, but suffice it to say, I sit idly for absolutely NO reason whatsoever. I'll upset the apple cart until every last apple careens down a hill and the truck is empty. I love men. Most of my friends are men. My 2 best girlfriends feel strongly the same way about women, on the other hand. With few exceptions, we all think women are kind of catty bitches who stomp all over the men in their lives. Our mission statement is to salvage such men from the Estrogen Prison in which they're trapped and release them freely to make themselves happy, to thrill their souls. And yes, it can be done.

I'm 3/4 of the way done with year one of graduate school in psychology. I've provided therapy to peers. We're all psychologists/therapists at our learning institution, so nosybody Ms. Terry S., you've got things pretty much all wrong and furthermore, you completely don't understand the meaning of the concept of "projection," but I found your statement funny nevertheless, as will my friends and colleagues:

Because calling out recovering alcoholics and drug addicts who have bipolar dual diagnoses is really fucking sensitive. It doesn't make me a bad person, a bad writer, or a bad psychologist. The opposite is true, really. And my goodness, it took you enough blog snooping to scramble together all of those details to form an erroneous profile of me. Just awesome. Like everyone who reads my blog (especially psychological and medical services, journals and recovery centers) doesn't already know these things. IQ points for Terry just plummeted by about 74 points.

This is, BY FAR, the best unintentionally appropriate and hilarious name for my upcoming memoir:

"Psychotic Word Salad."

Well, Chumpie, this is MY blog and if I fucking feel like it, I can completely tear you and your whiny, man-loathing friends to goddamn shreds. PS, Nutter Butters are one of my favorite cookies. PS, if you were "Lord" of the manor, you wouldn't be a woman in the first place. Pardon my literary criticism of aforementioned simpletons, but royal women are "Ladies," while men are "Lords." Got it?

Wait, big finish at the fireworks show!!!!!

Really, you can stay seated. A standing ovation really isn't necessary. Notoriety and infamy are treasures which elude too many writers. It certainly is a special day when such obvious, ridiculous fodder just plops into a writer's lap and any writer/author blessed with such base material around which to weave what is a true story should thank his/her lucky stars. Buy golly, fact check first! The life this merry band of fucktards created about me is actually more thrilling and salacious than my actual, real life is. Had I realized I was so tawdry and tabloid-attracting, I might have considered altering the gray hair on my head (which sucks at only age 40!) but instead began collecting ridiculously wild, printed socks that literally pretty much don't match anything, which is fucking glorious.

I would definitely crawl back under the rock from which I emerged, but I get spotty cell service under bridges:

I love the phrase "Annie can fuck off" so much that I'd almost totally have shirts printed saying that and use that as yet another writer's publicity or marketing tool, so thanks for the razzledazzle. The shirts could be bejeweled and glittery!

So best of luck, Chumps & Co. I'll keep checking into the pity party, though I can't book a reservation, because it's an awfully large, dangerous barrage of ultra-fanatical freaks who I'm reasonably certain haven't had a quarter of the fantastic sex I've had in my life.

PS, my ex-husband is a total peach (despite being sort of milquetoast) and we'll have one another's backs for life, as we're raising our son together. No hard feelings and ill will tempered and disappeared in a very short period of time (just months after the ink dried on our divorce).

My thinking is that not only are y'all incapable of learning how to actually file for a divorce, in addition to being clueless regarding how to be close to your ex and his family (and his girlfriend!).

"Chumps" really is kinder than calling you "jealous, vindictive vampires," I suppose...

27 comments:

BMF
said...

That is some funny, funny shit.

There's ACTUALLY a site where women call one another chumps re: their misadventures with jerky guys. You didn't make that up, and I'm sorry, but it's just the silliest thing I've ever heard of. It's sad, hilarious and pathetic at the same time, and VERY easy to see why these women lost their men--because they're stark raving mad and crazy, and not in a good way, and what guy can fucking stand THAT?

One of the best blogs you've written, definitely Top 10 Greatest Hits.

Fist pump to all the Other Women out there, sweetheart! Plow all those motherfuckers down!

"Psychotic Word Salad." I'm STILL laughing and you told me 2 days ago. Does Craig know about this? I think even he would find the humor in it, because he loves you.

Which is like 15 times even more incredibly awesome. Dumbfucks for taking down my post but proceeding to spend the rest of the day criticizing me. Now they're scrambling to find my blog. Oh, people. The depths of stupidity are sometimes utterly astounding. You have to just laugh.

It's so totally awesome that the only $.50 cent word these chumps are capable of utilizing is "vitriolic." And as if I needed to look it up in a dictionary. Ah, the fucktardery knows no bounds.

Really, quit while you're ahead. I have a dozen emails and aliases, and multiple IP addresses I could use to infiltrate your stupid chump blog and spew more ill will against y'all, so I'd probably tread very, very lightly on "Rhythms." Oh, all that and some VERY dedicated friends and fans.

You're treading in shark-infested, entirely pro-Annie territory and the teeth of my friends are very sharp.

If forced to label you, though, Chump, I'd say you had a pathological inferiority complex combined with schizoid personality disorder, and my diagnostic skills are A++.

Woe is you...all of you. Men would rather be shot in the bslls than spend 5 minutes listening to your bitching.

Chump Lady? Honey, change that to Chum Lady for going after Annie. All you chumettes out there, you have absolutely no idea who you are dealing with and how loyal her friends , like me ,are to her. You can only dream about her man magnet abilities. The guys she attracts are at the top of the sexual food chain.Is Chum Lady recruiting for the muff divers of America?If she is , good for her , just be honest about it!

Man Magnet? Kate, that's putting it mildly, and trying to convince Annie of that fact has been an upward battle for years, and I tell her how beautiful she is all the time. So what's the block? Guy. She wants to hear that from Guy-she's convinced herself that he thinks she's ugly. Give me just a small break.

Thank god he's coming home soon--I think it's like 3 days. There are only so many texts we can ALL receive every day that only say "I miss Guy."

$20 says 80% of the Chumps weigh over 200 lbs.

Your profession could shoot you to the moon with a resume tag line like "Annie: Musical Psychologist Chicago Chump Lady."

"Annie can just fuck off" that is just priceless. I am quietly laughing to myself in my hospital room that whole entry is pure gold. Man magnet I definitely agree, hell if I didn't live on another continent and wasn't in a happy long term relationship I would join the end of the queue

Behind that tough edge she prides herself on is a very sensitive, loving, vulnerable woman. She's just an tender softie.

I know Annie misses Guy a lot. Even though she and I don't see one another very often, we're always in contact, so she doesn't feel abandoned. I hope Guy realizes and appreciates how much she loves him, that's about it.

She mentioned that you were in the hospital--hope you're feeling better soon, bro!

Just glad you're ok, Rob. Heart scares are exactly that: scary. Annie pointed me to your page and you have a really cute kid. Just adorable.

Unfortunately, Guy and I won't run into one another in an airport in South America, but it's funny that he's coming from there and I'm going.

Annie, you must be so happy Guy's coming home, and that's OK. Guy, she's bold and brazen, but ask her out for an evening soon. We were all happy to help and love her while you were gone(especially Julia and Kate).

Anonymous Chumpette... "So what part of your psychological training supports which elements of this vitriolic attack on a stranger?" In short, cognitive behavior (or maybe Gestalt, haven't had a chance).

I'm not playing checkers with a bunch of preschool aged bitter women.

Rob, thsnks...that's a compliment I take to heart. You'e all sorts of swell. And he's right, your baby is the cutest!

Guy just texted me from Miami en route to Atlanta to home. He said we'd catch up tomorrow. I'm doing celebratory cartwheels throughout the house. Yes, I broke down & eventually sent a short email & texted him where I insisted he'd miss me. And I think he did.

You must be over the moon guy friend coming home hope you have a good reunion and you haven't strained anything freewheeling!,Safe travels BMF and thanks for the kid compliment as I have seen pics of yours and they look real cool kids

I'm sure Guy has a million loose ends to tie up and it's highly doubtful he is going to work today, but I seem to recall him being pretty unhappy about having to work on Easter, and I do hope I get to see him very soon. I appreciate all the hands to hold and shoulders on which to cry & laugh during his (TOO LENGTHY!) absence.

Literally, my heart leaped for joy and pounded upon receiving the text that he was almost home. It's like, "Dude, we can delay going out while you recuperate from your vacation, but for God's sake, stop by on your way home from work and give me a big hug, you douche!" :)

Rob, your boy's too little to cause as much trouble as BMF is grappling with now, and my son is old enough where I don't have to worry about 80% of that shit anymore.

With respect to the reader in Biloxi, MS, I've always wanted my own cult, so this is pretty fucking awesome. To revisit a year-old blog entry to see someone call attention to my diagnostic skills is a compliment, not an insult. Pathetic? Oh, for shame. Let's start another huge argument over man-hating! <3 Men, in all ways, shapes and forms. I could've spammed your comment, but I decided to publish it, because it was so funny. Now, let me get back to my man compound where I keep them balled and chained to do my bidding.

Well, I'll be damned!Hooray for the snowbirds in warmer climates!!! I'm so used to getting slammed by the ChumpLadies, I assumed incorrectly that you were dissing me and for that I apologize sincerely. Very was right! I read it totally wrong. Can I still have my cult, though? ;) Enjoy the rest of your winter! :)

Hey, I thought you might be interested in reading and thereafter maybe offering your excellent comments on Tracey's new book about being a chump. Her minions are already pumping up bogus positive comments and plundering/reporting/having deleted any negative comments on Amazon.com. I really hope you do because I can't stand this fake internet "experts" who thinks just because she can draw some cartoon pictures and she failed at 2 marriages and is now is a third marriage she is somehow a relationship expert. She also is a hypocrite. She rips on the relationship marriage infidelity advice industry but now authors a book and sells t-shirts as a supposed relationship marriage divorce infidelity expert.

Take it easy on poor Chump Lady. She's just trying to convince herself she's better for giving up on her marriage. And of course she's going to be a fascist and delete any dissenting comments - how else will she profit off of other bitter women? Plus it makes you right and shows she knows it too, so take pride in the fact that she's incapable of intelligent debate and let her have the last word.

Let them all fume and insult people they claimed to "love". It's all they've got. I've never seen a better example of misery loving company and find those man-haters fascinating. Plus it's great entertainment for everyone else. They'll eventually reach their nirvana - "meh" - and perhaps one day find other men to love/hate/insult.

For a good time, look into her "Is pornography infidelity?" post where she "supports" a woman who calls her husband a pedophile and potential molester of their own daughter because he looks at porn. She took him to confession and everything - what else could she do?? Pornography and masturbation, what a sicko! Next time she'll vet her manslave more thoroughly and he'll be faithful to his master.

I'm sorry to the last 2 people who left comments, as they got plunked into my "awaiting approval" folder. SHE HAD A FUCKING BOOK PUBLISHED??WHAT THE FUCK?

I didn't realize an author could delete disparaging remarks or reviews of their books on Amazon. Her minions must indeed be reporting them as abusive or offensive. I'm not sure I have the energy to battle her again, but you never know.

See, it's no big secret that I have a blog tracking system. It lets me know where readers come from and how they access my blog (Google, Blogspot, anonymous proxies, etc.). What the Chump Lady's friends were Googling to find me or my writing were HYSTERICAL.

This blog post comes up every once in a while. Thanks for letting me know what's going on. I'm no troll, but I simply disagree with, well, everything she says. And she has this pathetic legion of fans who are feel spurned and taken, which is an unfortunate light in which to put someone's self-esteem.

Do I just search for "Chump Lady" on Amazon? If I need to know her real name, you can privately email me at annie@theoffbeatdrummer.com and I'll get on it.

:)

I'll send you both copies of "Psychotic Brain Salad" when it finally gets published.

I kind of had forgotten about her with, you know, living my life and all.

Yes, if you mistakenly happen to disagree with ANYTHING she or her minions say, she will delete your comments, block you and then talk shit about you for days. I was SO highly amused by this, I had to put it to print. Sometimes, it's fun to be insulted.

I still think I should get t-shirts made that say, "Annie can fuck off!"